by Malcom James
“Hi, I’m Eli Green, I’m in the policy office across the street.” She looked up, saw his earnest eyes, and stood up and shook his hand in a professional but disinterested way. “Natalie Roth, social media.”
“Good to meet you. I thought I should at least introduce myself, I worked on the campaign as a consultant, specializing in data analytics for social media targeting, that kind of stuff. I figured it would be good to connect.”
She looked him over. “Of course. That must have been interesting.”
He smiled at her. “Yeah, to say the least.”
He caught her glancing down at the ID badge hanging around his neck. Instead of ignoring it, he lifted it up and read it, as if he wasn’t really sure what it said.
“I guess I don’t really have a title. I forgot to ask about that. It’s my first day.”
“You’ll learn. It’s a shark tank around here.” She closed her laptop and picked up her hand bag from the desk. “Well it was nice to meet you, Eli.” She gave him a stiff smile, and stepped around him, and walked out the door.
He was thrown for a moment as she headed out. But then for some reason, he followed her into the hallway. She could sense him right behind her, and could feel as he caught up to her, and she stopped and turned around. They were alone.
“Are you following me?”
“Yes, sorry.”
She looked at him harder.
He didn’t blink.
“We’ve got some pretty deep analytics we could be cross-referencing with whatever stats you guys are tracking, in terms of the president’s Twitter followers, Facebook likes, just the overall engagement levels on the primary platforms. That could be really helpful as we roll out our policy messaging strategy.”
She looked him up and down. He continued.
“I’m happy to share the data sets.”
“Are you for real?” she asked.
“I think so. Yes.”
She smiled softly, shook her head.
“Okay, I get it.” She looked around the hallway in a mock “is anyone listening?” face, and then lowered her voice.
“You’re smart. That’s good to know. It can be a rare commodity around here. But you’re not going to ‘swipe right’ on me, okay?”
He chuckled. Wow. “I wouldn’t think of it.”
“No?” she wondered out loud. Was she supposed to be insulted?
“I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, that’s not my agenda. I will admit though, I did want to meet you as soon as I heard who you were.”
She exhaled. He was already exhausting her, but her guard went down slightly.
“You’re going to look up my profile if you haven’t already, so I’ll give you the headline: born and raised in Boston, graduated B.U., majored in marketing, two years on Madison Avenue thanks to a friend’s dad, then took on media relations for Franks International Real Estate. Was engaged for a year, but we broke it off for various reasons. So I moved here after Franks won. No pets. I think that’s it. Oh yeah, I’m Jewish. You?”
He just took her in.
“Not Jewish. Born in Florida, raised by hippies. They moved west, then divorced. I was a tech geek in high school. President of the Coders Club. Wound up at Stanford.”
“Wait — so you’re a nerd?”
He scratched his head. “Frequently, yes,” he admitted. “Also did some time on start-ups. No pets. Light drinker and non-smoker because I like to run. Helps me clear my mind. Got a consulting gig with the campaign. And now, here we are, standing in a hallway in the West Wing. Crazy.”
There was a short, silent beat as they regarded each other.
“And never engaged,” he added.
“Well you’re just about perfect then, aren’t you?” she countered.
“Far from it,” he replied.
She suddenly looked tired.
“You know what? I apologize. Seriously. Thank you for introducing yourself. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other around. I’m really not a bitch, it’s just been a long day. And these shoes are killing me.”
He looked down at the heels she was wearing. He realized how short she would be without them.
“Women dress like women, and men dress like men. Everyone has to be out of central casting.”
“Yeah, I had to do some shopping. If I went to a meeting back home wearing this suit, they would think I was a banker and run for the hills.”
She checked her watch.
“Listen, I’ve got to run. Tweets to clean up after, that kind of thing. Next time we connect we can talk engagement data, okay?”
“Sure thing,” he replied.
“See you around, Eli.” She turned and continued down the hallway. This time he just watched her go.
***
After the press conference, Eli spent the rest of the day doing research on voter fraud issues. He still couldn’t find any evidence there was any kind of national epidemic or broad conspiracy. Mostly he found articles about efforts being made in red state legislatures to restrict voting, in the name of preventing the fraud that wasn’t supported by any evidence.
As the clock approached 7 p.m. and with Walter nowhere to be found, he decided to head home. Instead of getting a ride share and going for a run, he chose to walk.
It was cold, but the burn on his face felt refreshing after twelve hours indoors. He stopped by a Thai restaurant and grabbed take-out. With an exhausted mind and body after his first full day, Eli passed out on his couch in front of the news, with a half-eaten box of Thai noodles and unfinished beer on the table.
***
Something beeped and Eli jumped awake. He looked around his living room, saw the television still on, low volume. His food and half-drank beer were still on the table. He picked up his phone and saw it was 5:30 a.m. He had a notification that “@TheHaroldPFranks just tweeted.” He unlocked his phone and read the tweet.
“The people of America will soon sleep better at night - we must have SECURE BORDERS!” it said. Eli assumed, the way it was phrased, this had to be a personal tweet from Franks, and not something from Natalie or the staff. He was curious. He went to his desk, logged in, and ran a little program he had written to read the device information that was embedded in all tweets. Then he logged into Twitter and found the president’s tweet and ran it through the code. From the results, he could tell the tweet had been sent from a Samsung Galaxy S3, an older phone Eli heard was the president’s personal device. He knew how insecure that phone and operating system was, and was surprised the Secret Service still hadn’t upgraded him. Surprised, but not shocked. Like Sinatra, Franks did everything his own way.
After a shower and oatmeal, he arrived at the White House just after 7:30 a.m. The complex was busy that morning. There was a hum of staff coming through security, and fresh news vans outside the gates. A palpable buzz filled the marble halls as he grabbed shitty coffee and made his way to his cubicle.
No sooner had he plugged in his laptop and booted up, when Mike Garner, resident policy wonk, appeared over the ledge.
“Did you hear?”
“No, what’s up?” Eli asked.
“Executive Order this morning. Travel ban. This is major.”
Eli remembered the tweet from the night before.
“He’s a man of action,” Mike added, a gleeful look in his eye. Eli couldn’t disagree. He scanned the news sites and saw indicators of an Executive Order signing later that morning.
***
Just after 9 a.m. during a ceremony at the Department of Homeland Security, President Franks signed the most sweeping Executive Order of his one-week old administration. Officially it was titled: “PROTECTING THE NATION FROM FOREIGN TERRORIST ENTRY INTO THE UNITED STATES.”
It was an immediate ban, for at least ninety days, on all travelers from seven majority-Muslim nations: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. It also banned all refugees from entering the United States for one hundred an
d twenty days, and banned refugees from war-torn Syria indefinitely. Lastly, it put the entire visa-waiver program, which permitted entry to travelers from up to sixty other countries who had previously been clear to come into America, totally into question.
Within a few hours, protestors started massing at airports around the nation: New York and Newark, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Miami, Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, Los Angeles. Planes started landing, with people onboard who had been cleared to enter the U.S., only to be blocked by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on the ground. Lawyers began arriving at the airports to help them.
Eli drank coffee and watched the news of the slow-rolling wave of chaos as it developed throughout the nation’s airports. The buzz around the Eisenhower offices was evident. Franks was taking action, and his opponents were frozen in their shoes. Greater security was hard to argue with in 140 character tweets or thirty second soundbites.
By 7 p.m. there were state attorneys general who were filing injunctions in federal courts to stop the ban. Where this was headed was anyone’s guess, but legal observers seemed to feel it was going all the way to the Supreme Court.
With Walter nowhere to be found, Eli logged off and went home.
***
He was crashed out on his futon when he was again awoken by an alert on his phone. This time it was not a tweet, but a text message. “Are you available?” He didn’t recognize the number.
“Who is this?” he replied.
“Walter. New phone. Can you come over to my office in WH?” came the reply.
It was 10:47 p.m. Must be serious, he thought.
“Of course, be there in 15,” he answered.
“And bring a non-government laptop,” Walter replied.
5
A Sensitive Matter
Eli stood in Walter’s office, with Walter behind his desk, and Rick Reemus, President Franks’ chief of staff, pacing nervously. Eli had never met Reemus. Reemus was a Republican Party man, brought in to manage the outsider president and facilitate relations with congressional leaders. Franks didn’t trust Reemus, but making him chief of staff was an attempt to smooth things over with the party after Franks’ hostile takeover.
Reemus always seemed nervous and beady-eyed on TV, and now seeing him in person, Eli could see a sheen of sweat on his forehead. Walter leaned forward to break the tension.
“I asked you in because we have a situation. We thought you could help. This is extremely confidential.”
“Of course,” Eli acknowledged. Walter nodded to Reemus to proceed.
“The president’s tweeting from his old phone is… causing concern,” Reemus started. “The Secret Service and the intel community say the phone is a risk. A risk to the president, and therefore the country.” Reemus looked at Eli. Eli nodded his head in agreement.
“Yeah, he has an old phone, Samsung S3 or something?”
“Right. But the president doesn’t trust the ‘deep state’ to give him a new phone. So we’re going to upgrade him, but outside of official channels. He wants someone he can trust. Someone unexpected.”
Eli could see where this was headed.
“Okay…”
“He asked if we had someone. I said absolutely. That someone is you,” Walter added.
“Flattering,” Eli said. “But I’m not a mobile guy, I’m a data analytics guy.”
“That’s exactly why he wants you. You know enough to do the job, but it’s unexpected. It’s the same reason he trusts McDonald’s — they don’t know the food is for him, they cook everything the same, so he feels safe he won’t be poisoned.” Reemus just shook his head. Sad but true.
“When I suggested you, he was happy. You handled a lot of sensitive data for the campaign. And he’s looked you in the eyes. He considers you one of his guys,” Walter said.
Eli shook his head in agreement. “Of course. Okay so what do we need to do?”
Walter reached in a drawer and pulled out a new iPhone in its sealed white box.
“Unbreakable, at least according to the FBI after the whole San Bernardino thing. I bought it myself at the Apple store today, some regular Joe off the street. They had no idea who it’s for. Got a new one for myself, too.”
“You did?” Reemus asked.
“Yeah, I was overdue.”
“What did you get?”
“I got the Plus. But I have big hands,” Walter assured him. Reemus seemed jealous, but said nothing. Walter continued. “I’m already on Apple. Android, I have no clue. But I did create an account for him with a temporary password, and set up a card.” Walter handed Eli a paper with scribbled info.
“Okay, we just need a machine to back up his old phone, and then we can port his data. It’s a lot faster than doing it over wi-fi.”
“The president doesn’t have a computer, just his phone. Everything is printed for him, that’s how he likes to read.” Reemus chuckled. He knew the president didn’t read anything but his Twitter feed, and occasionally a teleprompter.
“There are plenty of computers around the White House,” Eli answered.
“Nope, he doesn’t trust any White House computers. Could be ‘bugged.’ Has to be a private machine.”
Eli patted his leather shoulder bag.
“That’s why you asked me to bring this.”
“Can you do it?” Walter asked with a pleading look.
“Sure.”
“Great, let’s go.” Walter stood up.
“Now?” Eli asked.
“Now,” Reemus replied, as he opened Walter’s office door and started down the hallway. Eli followed Walter and Reemus downstairs to the ground floor of the West Wing, past the Oval Office, then outside to the West colonnade, where they walked in the dark along the Rose Garden toward the Residence, and finally entered the Palm Room, where two Secret Service agents re-checked them.
Once they were cleared, an African-American usher in bowtie and tails escorted them into the main entrance hall of the Residence, then up two flights of stairs to the West Sitting Hall, just outside the president’s master bedroom. Eli was struck by how identical it looked to the White House set of the TV show “House of Cards,” with the familiar semi-oval window looking out on D.C. at night.
Seated on a couch and reading a People Magazine with President Franks on the cover was Ken Miller, the president’s “body man.” Ken put the magazine down and stood up, all 6’3” of him.
“Ken Miller,” he said as he offered his hand and Eli shook it.
“Eli Green,” was all Eli said as they shook hands. Walter and Reemus sat down on opposite couches as Ken gave the usher an affirmative nod.
“This way, sir,” and the usher guided Eli to the president’s bedroom door, knocking twice and then calling out “Mr. President, Mr. Green is here to see you.”
“Come in!” came Franks’ booming voice from inside. “Very good, sir,” the usher replied and opened the door. Eli stepped in, and then the usher backed away and closed him inside.
Eli couldn’t believe he was standing in the president’s bedroom. It was decorated in the Baroque Louis XIV style that he knew Franks was partial to, with a large four-poster wooden bed, intricately carved and glided in gold trim, with gold curtains, and gold-tone bedding to match. A flat screen television inside an open armoire was tuned to Fox News, with the audio cranked up. The president was nowhere to be seen.
“Have a seat, Eli. I’ll be right there,” came Franks’ voice from the next room. Eli was so nervous, sitting was the last thing on his mind. But he forced himself into a side chair next to a small oval table. And then Franks walked in, wearing a thick white bathrobe tied around the waist, matching white bath slippers with gold trim, and a television remote in hand. His hair was slicked back as if he had showered. It looked much thinner when it was wet. Franks turned down the volume and slipped the remote into his robe pocket. Eli thought he looked even taller and broader in his robe, and the whole surreal setting only
made him more nervous, as the president approached and stuck out his hand. Eli jumped up and shook it.
“Good to see you again, Eli. Thanks for coming so late.”
“Thank you, sir, it’s no problem at all,” Eli replied as they shook hands.
“Reemus insists I get rid of my phone, and I’m damn sick of hearing about it, so let’s get on with it.” President Franks walked over to the side table by his bed and picked up his trusty old Samsung and its charger, and brought it over to Eli, while Eli pulled out his laptop and booted it up next to the new iPhone box he set on the table.
“Tell me how this works,” Franks said.
“Absolutely, sir. It’s pretty straight forward. We’ll back up your old phone to this laptop, then set up your new phone, then import your data. It only takes a few minutes. They make it super easy.” Eli began opening up the new iPhone box.
“What about security? I’ve had this phone for years, I have a lot of business information, deal memos, that kind of thing. Highly confidential,” the president explained.
“Of course, sir. First you will setup a new security pin code for the iPhone that only you will know,” Eli responded.
“Even the FBI can’t crack that thing, right?” Franks asked.
“That’s right sir, it’s extremely secure,” Eli answered. “And when the app moves your data over, it all happens in minutes, behind the scenes. When it’s done, you can keep your old phone, wipe it, destroy it, whatever you want. And your new phone will be encrypted and backed up to the cloud,” Eli explained as he tapped away on his laptop.
“The cloud? I don’t want anything in the goddamn cloud. Everything should be on the phone, and nowhere else,” the president demanded.
“Okay, got it. I’ll disable the cloud. I would say just keep your old phone as a backup, in case the new one ever gets damaged or lost or whatever.”
“You bet I will. That old phone stays with me. Lots of great memories, the grandkids, all that stuff. Don’t want to lose that, right?” Franks asked.
“Absolutely not. Memories are what it’s all about, sir,” Eli replied.
Eli started up the new iPhone, and began going through the initial setup with the info Walter gave him. Franks turned to the TV and turned the volume back up. Fox News was covering the travel ban chaos in the airports and complimenting the president for taking swift action to protect the nation from terrorists.
